(This course should be of interest to users of XML located in
or near the Bay Area and to anyone interested in XForms.)
Black Mesa Technologies is pleased to announce a two-day hands-on
introductory course on XForms to take place 16-17 June 2011 in San
Carlos, California. MarkLogic Corporation is generously making a
training room available for the course (but it should be noted that
it's not a MarkLogic course).
INTRODUCTION TO XFORMS FOR XML USERS
San Carlos, California
16-17 June 2011
This two-day hands-on course introduces XForms as a technology for
building special-purpose XML editors with limited functionality and
correspondingly simple user interfaces.
XForms is built on the model / view / controller idiom, in which the
'model' is a set of XML documents, the 'view' is specified using
XHTML and XForms controls (or 'widgets'), and the 'controller' takes
the form of declarative links between controls in the view and
elements or attributes in the XML documents. With XForms, projects
can develop vocabulary- and task-specific editors which require less
training and provide better task-specific support than full XML
editors; it is thus easier to allow domain experts to examine and
modify XML encoding, and routine tasks can be performed more quickly
and reliably.
* Topics and syllabus
The course is divided into eight sessions, four to a day:
Introduction: High-level overview of XForms, background, goals and
purpose of the XForms spec; “Hello, world” example
Atomic values and simple structures (1): A simple form; multiple
submit buttons; enumerated values and vocabulary control;
conditional relevance; datatypes; validation.
Atomic values and simple structures (2): Error messages, help,
hints; validation beyond datatypes; styling the form; adjusting
for alternate XML structures.
Multi-part user interfaces:
Coding patterns for tabbed interfaces, wizards, user-selected
alternate views (e.g. summary vs. details, novice vs expert,
etc.). Multiple instances; dynamic user interfaces.
Homogeneous repetitions: Handling flat lists; paging through
records, one record at a time; running off the cliff and how to
avoid it. Read-only lists; lists of editable items; see-many,
edit-one interfaces.
Read-write repetitions, CRUD operations: Special styling for focus
item; two-pane views. Inserting items; initializing new
items. Deleting items.
Mixed content, heterogeneous sequences: Dealing with (flat)
heterogeneous sequences; dealing with variable-depth
sequences. Extensions to XForms: tree editors, general mixed-content
editors. Doing without the extensions: targeted editing in mixed
content, offloading work to XSLT.
What next? Individual work and/or Q/A: Where do you go from here?
Individual work or questions and answers; wrapup.
During the class, students will develop a small XForms application
with a multi-part interface, multiple widget types, and the ability to
add, modify, and delete records in a set. Students will be encouraged
to take their class exercise files with them so that they can continue
to work with them after the class.
* Prerequisites
Participants should be comfortable editing XML documents and have some
knowledge of HTML markup. Familiarity with XPath and XSLT is helpful
but not required. Programming experience is not required.
Students should bring their own laptops; no classroom machines will be
provided. The machine must have wifi support, a browser with built-in
support for XSLT (any current version of most major browsers
qualifies) and software the student can use for editing XML documents.
* Who
The course is organized by Black Mesa Technologies LLC and will be
taught by C. M. Sperberg-McQueen.
Michael Sperberg-McQueen is the founder of Black Mesa Technologies. He
has served as co-editor of the XML 1.0 specification, the Text
Encoding Initiative's Guidelines for Text Encoding and Interchange,
and the XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 specification; in
2003 he was awarded the XML Cup for contributions to the development
and spread of XML.
MarkLogic Corporation is providing space (for which thanks), but has
no other involvement with the course.
* Logistics
This course will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday and
Friday, 16-17 June 2011, at
MarkLogic Corporation
999 Skyway Road, Suite 200
San Carlos, CA 94070
Thanks to MarkLogic Corporation for hosting the course.
For other logistical information, see the course web site at
http://www.xforms201106.blackmesatech.com/
* Reservations / Info
Space in the course is limited.
To reserve a space, to register, or to ask for more information,
please send email to info@blackmesatech.com or call us at
505/747-4224.
An early-bird discount is available for registrations made before
16 May 2011.
* Announcements of future courses
To receive announcements of future Black Mesa Technologies courses on
XForms and other topics, you can subscribe to
blackmesatech-announce-l.
--
****************************************************************
* C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
* http://www.blackmesatech.com
* http://cmsmcq.com/mib
* http://balisage.net
****************************************************************